Will you drown? • Hacker News Board

Re: Will you drown?

#141

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 11:38 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #140

PeterisP wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years is not the timeframe to think about - how about 5 minutes? Approximately every 5 minutes someone dies from cancer. We might at some point cure cancer - if so, accelerating that point by 5 minutes is equivalent to saving a life, and if your actions cause that point to be delayed by 5 minutes, than that's essentially murder. Think about it. Most people don't have any effect on that whatsoever, but there are man…

> A somewhat cynical implication of this could be, playing the devils advocate, that there are exactly two kinds of actions (and people?) - those that change some +/- epsilon to one of these two events, and those that are irrelevant. I was with you until somewhere around here. As I said I don't see any shame that one might be in the "irrelevant" group. Maybe you tried and failed. Maybe something else prevented you fr…

I'd believe the key difference is in the possibility. Like, if I'm peacefully watching a sunset while a kid drowns on the other side of the world, then it's not shameful in any way; but if I'm peacefully watching a sunset on a beach while a kid is drowning next to me, then people should be judgemental.

It's perfectly understandable that most (perhaps even 99+%?) of the global population won't have any non-local influence, and that's okay, it can't reasonably be much different. However, there are things that scale, and they have a disproportionally large effect. For example, politicians are a particular group who can have huge long-term impact even as unintentional side effects; so are public NGOs. And many of them are intentionally doing things that cause delay in much-needed technologies or increase risk of us killing ourselves - I'd say that this is equivalent to [mass-]murder, even if the deaths are not specific, named individuals but "just a statistic"; and not today but a bit in the future. Perhaps we should be more judgemental about that, instead of agreeing to disagree.

Re: Will you drown?

#142

Post by dennisgorelik » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 12:09 AM UTC

jffry wrote: post #4

Play automatically: setInterval(function(){ $("a").click() }, 100) (Edit: Yes, this leads you through a very fast, very bad life. Play manually and have a better life.)

This code:

  setInterval(function(){ $("a").click() }, 1000)

leads to a very long life.

Since "You need to learn." is at the bottom of task list, with 1s delay it never gets attention, so you don't learn, so you don't age.

Here's what I've got:

  You have:
  Hope
  Body
  Life
  Love
  309 Memory
  Integrity
  Job
  180 Experience
  53 Friend
  4 Respect
  216 Stuff
  102 Broken Heart
  6 Stress
  Knowledge
  Lover

  You are troubled. [Can't afford] -Integrity -Lost Ambition

Re: Will you drown?

#143

Post by err4nt » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 3:19 AM UTC

parasight wrote: post #8

jffry wrote: post #4

Play automatically: setInterval(function(){ $("a").click() }, 100) (Edit: Yes, this leads you through a very fast, very bad life. Play manually and have a better life.)

Drowning in problems? Automation is the solution ;)

Amen to that

Re: Will you drown?

#144

Post by vincentbarr » Tue, Apr 29, 2014, 1:38 AM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #129

evincarofautumn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s positive in a way. Sure, you always lose in the end, but you can have a lot of fun in the meantime.

Indeed. To paraphrase Alan Watts, life isn't like a pilgrimage with a very important goal at the end, it's more like a musical thing, and you are supposed to laugh and sing and dance throughout, not just wait for the final chord.

Or, "Human life is like walking into a movie halfway through, and having to walk out again two minutes later. You’ll have no idea what’s going on when you walk in. And chances are, just as you begin to get a clue, you’ll be kicked out.

So unless you are lucky enough to walk in during a scene that is satisfying without any longer narrative context (think sex or violence), your ability to derive satisfaction from your two-minute glimpse will depend partly on your ability to construct meaning out of it... [so], approach your limited two-minute glimpse of the movie as though you’ve been watching all along, and as though you might stick around to see how it all ends" (source: http://goo.gl/kLeWxw)

Re: Will you drown?

#145

Post by hisham_hm » Tue, Apr 29, 2014, 4:39 PM UTC

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #124

hisham_hm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I just replayed it and realized I didn't notice when exactly I got it. I had to play it for a third time to see the exact point. It made me go: "oh". Brilliant.

can you explain? i can't understand what 'integrity' means for a toddler to get, and why would it cost knowledge.

I think it's more the fact that this one is "hidden" in the beginning than anything else, but there are possible rationalizations one might conjecture as to why at that age.